Divorcing Her Mafia Family
Chapter 27

Dimitra kissed Nerida on the cheeks after accepting a tight hug from Giorgio and tried to get past Miklos who was on his phone just outside the restaurant.

“I need a lift home.” He called to her. “Wait for me over there on the bench. I’ll be a few minutes, fifteen at most.”

“Call Ajax,” she walked backwards. “I’m not going to the house tonight. I have other plans.”

“He is dealing with a situation,” his eyes told her not to question the situation and she g*****d.

“Fine.”

She moved to the bench near the car park and pulled her own phone out and turned it back on. Eight missed calls from Ben.

She called him back and put him on speaker, holding the phone to her chin. “Ben, I was in the middle of dinner with my in-laws. What could possibly be so urgent you couldn’t wait.”

“I miss you,” he said quietly into the phone. It was quiet near her bench and the warmth of his voice filtered around her.

She closed her eyes at his tone. “Ben, I can’t do this right now.”

“Then come home and we will do it later.” The double-entendre was clear.

“Ben. I told you. You and I will never work out. Not ever.”

“I held you in my arms every night for a month. You fit perfect there. You should still be here, letting me hold you.”

“What time is it there?” she asked quietly changing the subject. “You’re up late.”

“It’s just coming on five. I’ve been up all night.”

“Why? What is wrong with the program?”

“Nothing you probably couldn’t fix in an hour if you were here” he griped.

She sighed, “send me the details you oaf and I’ll look at in the morning remotely. My morning, not yours.”

“Thank you, my darling. Now, let’s get back to the conversation of when you are going to move back in with me.”

“I never moved in with you in the first place. You graciously let me stay in your guest room while my flat got repaired after the flood.”

“Yes, but in the forty-one days you stayed in my guest room, I slept twenty-six nights in my guest room.” He was blunt, “I was content to just hold you Dimi because I knew you wanted to take it slow. Then we almost made love and the next day you were on a plane to Dubai promising to come back. It’s been more than two years. When are you coming back?”

“It’s complicated Ben.”

“I love you Dimi. It doesn’t have to be so complicated. I don’t care you have a weird marriage to a man who was stupid enough to remind you daily you were a bride on paper only. I don’t need you to take my name or marry me if it’s what you don’t want or can’t do. I only want you.”

“Ben, I can’t.” she whispered into the phone. “It’s not possible.”

“They won’t let you leave?” He said seriously, “then I’ll come replace you and we can go to my villa. They won’t replace you there. Dimi, you deserve to be loved for the amazing, beautiful, and smart woman you are. You deserve to wake up every single day in the arms of a man you know will never betray you and will give you all of his heart.”

She took a breath, “Ben, send me the program information and I’ll look at it in the morning.”

“Just tell me you’ll think about what I said. Please.”

“Yeah sure,” she pushed her hair off her face absently and sighed. “I’ll think about it but right now I have to go.”

“Bye darling.”

“Bye Ben.”

She hung up the phone and leaned her head backwards to look at the sky and gave a scream of terror at the man leaning over her with a c****d eyebrow. She jumped off the bench and rounded it shoving him hard. “What the f**k is wrong with you Miklos! You scared the hell out of me.”

“I was concerned you would leave without me, so I ended my call and imagine my surprise when you were talking to lover boy Ben. You slept with him?” he held her eyes angrily, “twenty-six nights? You f*****g lived with the guy?”

“The lady who lived above us left her tub running and fell asleep. It flooded my bedroom. Magda and Darya were already sharing a room. I tried staying on the sofa while the room was under repair but Ben had a guest room in his condo and so I took him up on the offer to stay with him until our room was complete. While I was there, I had the offer to go do a project for a tech firm in Dubai and it was a huge deal and he encouraged me to go. He wanted me to come back to London. I didn’t.”

“He is in love with you.”

“He likes to think so. Again, it’s one of those situations of wanting what you can’t have. I’m a challenge.”

“He said you almost made love. How far did he get?”

“None of your f*****g business!” she suddenly missed her knuckle dusters.

“Did he see you naked?”

“Multiple times.” She took pleasure in the way Miklos paled.

“But he couldn’t seal the deal huh?”

“He respected the boundaries I set unlike another man I know.”

“You told him you were married and couldn’t?”

She laughed in his face. “No. I told him I wouldn’t f**k my boss. I might blow him, but I wasn’t f*****g him.”

“You blew him?” Miklos was a funny shade now

“I don’t have time for this. It’s nearly ten. I still have to get work done I didn’t finish today because I was setting you a surprise firework display. I’m quite disappointed nobody got video. I hope the garage has video surveillance and I can watch it though I didn’t notice any.”

“There isn’t any video in the garage.” He followed her to the car. “I want to talk more about this Ben guy.”

“No.” she refused him as she dug for her key fob out of her purse and unlocked the door.

He yanked the fob from her, “I’m driving. Get in the passenger side.”

“It’s my car.”

“Want to fight over it?” He stepped closer to her, “I’m spoiling for a fight all of a sudden, Dimi. We can go to the warehouse, and we can brawl the way we did when you were younger. You’ve gotten soft so maybe you need to be reminded how to get tough.”

“Miklos, get your d**k and your jealousy under control. It’s unbecoming.” She rounded the car and got into the passenger side. Ignoring him adjusting the seat for his long legs, she called Darya.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Hey, my pretty,” she spoke quickly. “Mags was supposed to call me with the info on the new project and I haven’t heard from her. Is she hiding from Daddy Warbucks?”

“He’s gone radio silent since she called him this morning in her drunken state. She surfed. She swam. She went for a run. She is currently laying on the floor of the living room eating a bag of chocolate chips and watching Love Actually.”

“Oh Mags,” Dimi whispered sadly. “Maybe we should just back away from all of this.”

“No.” Darya refused, “the money is too good and nobody else will pay us this much. She’ll have to sort her heart out after the contract is signed. For now, she has to stay the course.”

“I just don’t like to know she’s hurting.”

“Speaking of hurting, Ben called me looking for you. Said you turned your phone off. Two years, Dimi. Two years and he hasn’t given up.”

She banged into the side of the door as Miklos took a corner hard and she glared at him, “I spoke with him. Someone’s sabotaged the program again and this time he can’t fix it himself. I said I’d do it, but this will be the last time.”

“You said this the last four times.” Darya teased her.

“I know.”

“He’s very intense.”

“I’m used to intense.” She shot Miklos a look.

“Hey, what happened with the fireworks?” Darya asked suddenly with glee. “Tell me they went off without a hitch.”

“Apparently fifty to a hundred thousand dollars worth of damages.”

“And?”

“And I still had dinner with his family, and everyone is apparently excited about me laying on my back to procreate the next line of ruthless bastards to rule over our little Greek families.”

“Oh Dimi, I thought for sure this would be the thing to make him sign.” Darya’s voice was sad, “I’m sorry sweetie. I know how much you just want the chance to love and be loved and to not have to deal with the violence ever again.”

She didn’t look to Miklos as the car swerved again and she stared sadly out the window, “thanks Darya. I’m not done yet. Never surrender, right?”

Darya giggled, “right. Thursday is going to be fantastic.”

“I need to go,” she cut her off before she revealed Thursday’s plan. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“I thought you were coming back here tonight?”

“Change of plans. I destroyed a bunch of cars so mine got commandeered.”

Darya gave a laugh. “Well good luck then. You may want to dig out your new sewing kit and stitch your knees together.” Darya hung up cackling at her joke.

“I knew it! It was you who f****d with my suits. Why else would you have a sewing kit?”

“You’re a moron,” she rolled her eyes, refusing to admit it, and didn’t look at him.

“Question,” he was driving stupidly fast and taking corners far too sharply for her liking. He appeared to be doing it on purpose.

“What?”

“Was the d**k you sucked so putrid you left the country and never went back? I mean, I get why he’s pining after you for two years. I had you an hour in a bathroom and my d**k is hard right now with just the memory of it. I know you want to jump back on mine. What made you run from his?”

“I am not answering your question.”

“Chicken.”

“I’m not a chicken, Miklos. You’re expecting me to tell you something and you won’t like the answer. Rather than wind up in a situation where I could possibly get hurt, I am shutting my mouth.”

“You think I’d hurt you over an answer to a question? What do you think of me?”

“Your parents named you Miklos Vasili for a reason.”

“I am not your father.”

“Fine, you want to know why I didn’t go back?” she turned to face him. “I fell in love with him. He was sweet, funny, gentle, and kind. He is the kind of man who when there was a spider in the shower, he took it outside and set it free. He brushed my hair, and he took his time, and he never once pressured me to do anything I didn’t want to do. He made me feel dainty and adored. I loved sleeping in his arms and having him wake me with a cup of tea in the morning before we went to work together. He treated me as an equal and a partner when he didn’t need to. And I stupidly fell in love with him, and I knew if I went back, I wouldn’t leave him and one of you, you, or my father or one of your stupid soldiers would come replace me and drag me back home and he would get hurt in the process. So, I did what I was trained to do all of my childhood. I compartmentalized and put that s**t away. It made me more resolute to reach my end goal. Ben will replace someone else to love. He’s a great guy and he deserves far better than a woman like me who has killed people over money owed to our family. Someday, when I’m able to put this family behind me, I will meet a man and I will fall in love again, like I deserve to. I will have a family who need never know about the dangers and the violence of being a Lykiaos.”

She watched his white knuckled grip on her steering wheel and pushed it further, “you know he told me he didn’t even care I had your name. He would take me away and we could have a family and he would never complain. He just wanted to be with me. He’s pure and sweet. I couldn’t taint a man like him or worse put him in your crosshairs.”

“You believed yourself to be in love with him?”

“I did.”

“Didn’t last long. You can’t just push love out of your heart because you want to, Dimi. It wasn’t love. It was a fairy tale you let yourself get lost in, but it wasn’t love.”

“You don’t get to school me on what love is or isn’t, Miklos. You don’t know my heart. I told you before, I’m not the child you once knew.”

“How many more Bens are there?” At her silence he pushed, “how many more guys have you had intimate relationships with but just didn’t f**k?”

“I dated plenty. Two others seriously.” She refused to back down.

“One of them is the Bryce guy?”

“Ew no. He’s gross.”

“Then who?”

“None of your business, Miklos. I don’t owe you a play by play of who I made out with.”

“You’re right. You could have made out with hundreds of men but I’m the one you let f**k you. Me.”

“Jesus Christ,” she made a face. “Do we need to go over this again? I scratched a curious itch. Also, I never had s*x with Ben because he was my boss. If I hadn’t been under a contract with him, I would have had him buried balls deep. The other two men were people I dated but the timing was off. One was nearing graduation and I got thrown into FBI custody and it freaked him out. The other was when I first got here in LA, and I was too busy to make it work because of the beta testing of our program.”

Her words silenced him. Had he thought she’d been a celibate innocent? She remembered she’d used Sienna as a double, so it was exactly what he’d thought. Her bodyguard had probably watched every single movement she’d made, and Sienna was as pure the driven snow. She made a face.

“Well, then as my mother said, it’s good you got it out of your system before moving back home.”

“I haven’t moved back home, Miklos. I’m here for one thing and one thing only. I want a divorce.”

“Neither your family nor mine have ever had a divorce and we won’t be starting now. I don’t know how to make you understand this isn’t optional. You can draw up all the papers you want but I will never sign them, and I will fight them in court until we are both old and grey.”

“Why are you doing this to me?” she turned to face him furiously. “Miklos surely you would much rather have a woman like Eve in your life. A wife who will look good on your arm in the tabloids not short and fat. One who won’t bat an eyelash when you’re out partying all hours of the night. She’ll happily let you turn your offspring into vovoi and embrace the violence.”

“Enough,” he spit at her furiously. “Dimitra, our family is what it is. Perhaps your father made a mistake in thinking you were smart and strong enough to be brought into the inner circle. He should have left you out like your mother and his sisters. You are so focused on the s**t you forget the good.”

“What good?” She scoffed at him

“We protect our family. We protect those who need us. We take care of our own. Here in America and home in Greece. We provide jobs, security, financial support for thousands and thousands of families. When a man of our family dies, the woman of the family never needs or wants for anything her husband has been providing for her because we take care of his family. You remember your first kill, but you forget why it happened. It was for Mrs. Kyriakos because they shot him right in front of her. She had his b***d on her face, Dimitra. You remember punishing but do you remember why? Do you remember the girl you went to school with who got raped? What did we do on her behalf? We did what the police and the judges would never do. We gave her justice. This week you took money from a crooked son of a b***h who was stealing from his own daughters and put money back in their hands, where it belonged. That is the work we do.”

She was silent as he tore down the streets absorbing his words.

“There will be no divorce Dimitra but there will also be no partnership if you don’t get your head out of your a*s. You’ve built up such a hatred of me and your father it has given you the temperament of a self-entitled brat. I want my wife at my side doing business with me but also being the female representative, this family has lacked because your mother was too damn fragile. I never judged you by her behaviour and I am tired of you judging me by your father’s. I am my own man. Open your f*****g eyes and see it.”

“You’re dictating my life.”

“My life has also been dictated Dimitra. You don’t see me throwing a f*****g temper tantrum, blowing up garages, and snipping buttons of clothing like a teenager.”

“Let me go and I will stop,” she said bluntly.

“No. You can burn it all to the ground Dimitra. Destroy it all. They are just things. I can replace all of it with the blink of an eye. What you cannot destroy, or tarnish is what our family stands for and what our union stands for. The Lykiaos blessing has continued for centuries and will for centuries more. The Laskaris name will continue as long. This is more than just your wants and desires, Dimitra. The Fates have put us together for a reason.”

“I hate you,” she hissed furiously at him.

“You can hate me all you want but there will be no divorce. If you want to go back to your idea of petri dishes and sleeping separately, I will as a last resort. You will not take another lover. It is me or nothing.” As her mouth opened to protest, he pulled the car towards the gates of the compound, “Dimitra, if I am never sleeping with anyone else ever again, neither are you. We can either be happy together and make this work or we can be two of the most sexually frustrated people who ever walked the earth who make babies in a lab, but we will give your father the heir he wants to join our names and you will remain my wife. I don’t mind being a miserable prick for the rest of my life. It’s better for business anyway.”

“You would make me stay with you and never experience a loving marriage?”

“No. This is your decision Dimitra,” he pulled the car alongside the house and put it in park. “I can give you all the love, affection, and adoration your heart can handle. You are the one rejecting it. If you want a loveless marriage, it is what you will get. What you won’t get is a divorce. Nothing you can do will ever change my mind.” He repeated his earlier words, “Destroy it all if you must,” he waved around the yard, “but you are my wife and you will never be anyone else’s.”

He got out of the car, and she watched him walk proudly into the house without looking back at her and once he was inside the house, she let a primal scream escape her lips as she kicked her feet and punched the dash of her car furiously. “Motherfucker!” she shrieked.

She sat there in the dark of the driveway and contemplated his words. They could be two of the most sexually frustrated people who ever walked the face of the earth.

She sat there and a devious smile curled her lips. A man with his libido would not be able to last a mere days without getting laid. All she needed to do was drive him so crazy he went looking for it elsewhere and prove her point he was just like her father. Silly Miklos. She could be just as ruthless as him.